28 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



and ice from the outside. I now bore 

 about tliree or four 3^-inph boles over tbe 

 entrance, and cut the bottom-board otf 

 even with tlie hive, and leave the entrance 

 ouen tlie whole width ; and now tlie en- 

 trances are always clear of snow and ice, 

 and the bees seem to push the dead bees 

 out, for in front of every hive I can see a 

 handful of dead bees wliicli the bees 

 pushed ont. I use the Lanf^stroth-Tele- 

 scope hive, and 1 have not lost a colony of 

 bees ill them in three years. 1 winter my 

 bees on the summer stands with no pack- 

 ing of any kind, and no upward ventila- 

 tion, and when 1 take off the sections in 

 the fall, I replace them with a honey- 

 board, and the bees seal every thint; up 

 tight, and tix it up to suit themselves. 



t^ G.,M. Doolittle, Borodino,© N. 

 • Y., on Jan. 5, 1884, writes • 



The weather has again been extremely 

 cold here ; with the "mercury away below 

 zero. The bees are wintering well, how- 

 ever. 



i^° Allen H. Thorne, Fountain 

 City,o+ Ind., on Jan. 1, 1885, writes : 



1 have 18 colonies of bees packed in 

 bee-houses, the sides of which are made of 

 dressed flouring, and the slanting roof, 

 which is made of light weather-boards, 

 is luiiig on hinges so as to be raised 

 from the rear, llie largest one holds 10 

 Simplicity-Langstroth hives. The hives 

 stand about 6 inches back from the front 

 entrance, with a slantini; hoard extending 

 down within one inch of the entrances of 

 tlie hives, and with s inches of dry saw- 

 dust behind them. I have flax straw over 

 tlLe entrances, so as to darken the hives, 

 and keep out the whul, and thereby kee)) 

 llie bees quiet in all kinds of weather. 

 The season here has been a poor one. 

 There was no nectnr to he gathered save 

 for a little while in the spring. 1 have 

 several colonies of bees wintered on sugar 

 syrup alone with pollen. 



^° D. K. Ro.'ebrough,Casey,c>f 111., 

 on Jan. .3, 1885, writes : 



My bees are wintering finely. On Dec. 

 30 and .31 they had a flight which they 

 neuled very badly. 1 have been a reader 

 of the valuable Bee Joikxal for a num- 

 ber of years, and 1 also liave been a close 

 observer of my bees, and 1 have come to 

 the conclusion that bees often die for tbe 

 want of water, espeeiallv in chaff hives 

 in the cellar. 1 think that if Mr. Doolittle 

 bad given his bees water last winter, he 

 would have had a diffeient re|)ort to make 

 in the spring. Let some one who has a 

 dry cellar try it with a few colonies, and 

 then report in the spring. Milk and 

 honey will cure dyspepsia. I have a 

 young man on this diet, and he wrote his 

 parents that it was doing him more good 

 than anything he had ever tried. He is 

 quite wealthy, and bad visited several 

 noted Springs in Arkansas, and had also 

 employed the best doctor in the country, 

 but he finally began to drink milk, and 

 continued it for three mouths, when I ad- 

 vised him to mix honey with it ; he tried 

 it, au<l is now attending college. lie 

 wrote his i)arents to send him more honey. 

 Honey is curing bini, and giving him new 

 blood. 



®" Mr. and Mrs. I). Molir, Man- 

 chester, o* Iowa, on Jan. 1, 1885, write : 



Having leased our farm of 160 acres five 

 years ago (but we still live on it), we h,'- 

 gan the keeping of bees, ami the following 

 is our rei)i>rt for tbe past tour years, the 

 number of colonies being spring count: 

 In IbSI we had 20 colonies, and produced 

 372 pounds of comb bonev, 1.282 pounds of 

 extracted, and sold ISI 12.78 worth of 



honey ; in 1882 we had 4.5 colonies, and 

 secured 1,304 pounds of comb honey, 

 2,0'36 pounds of extracted, and sold :8294.72 

 worth of honey ; in 1S83 we had 7.5 colo- 

 nies, and obtained I..510 ptmnds of comb 

 honey, 2,284 pounds of extracted, and sold 

 S3.38.30 worth of honey ; and in 1884 we 

 had 7.5 colonies, and took 1,B12 pounds of 

 comb honey, 3..503 pounds of extracted, 

 anil received $435,85 for the honey sold. 

 From the foregoing it will be seen that 

 the average per colony for the four years, 

 was .59J^ pounds, ana that the net pro- 

 ceeds in cash per colony was $5.49. No 

 account was kept of honey given away or 

 eaten in the family, but the above figures 

 show the actual aimmnt received for honey 

 sold. We have now 100 colonies in good 

 condition in the cellar. We make our 

 comb foundation on a Given press, and 

 we have never sold comb honey for less 

 than 15 cents per pound, nor extracted for 

 less than 10 cents per pound. The largest 

 yield from one colony, in one season, was 

 217 poui ds of extracted honey. About 

 one-third of the number of colonies were 

 run for extracted honey only. 



®" Jas. Jardine, Ashland, o+ Nebr., 

 on Dec. 29, 1884, writes : 



The fall honey-flow was very short, and 

 I put on the secti(uis very fast to keep the 

 bees from swarming, for it was late in the 

 season. I had 12 swarms. Tiie last one 

 that I saw jiass over my bee-yard, was on 

 Sept. 9. I think that they would have 

 fared better had they remained with 

 me instead of going to the woods. A very 

 fine swarm came to my yard and united 

 with one of my weak colonies, and I 

 thought that they were robbing, but I 

 opened the hive and found everything all 

 right and plenty" of honey. Last winter I 

 lost 35 colonies, although they had plenty 

 of honey, and many of the others were 

 very weak, so they needed a great deal of 

 nursing to prepare them for the honey- 

 flow. During the past fall I made a bee- 

 cellar 12x34 feet and 8 feet high. The 

 walls are plastered with mortar, and the 

 roof is made of matched boards. When it 

 was all dried nicely, I put 120 colonies of 

 bees into it on Nov. 30, piling them up 

 four high all anmnd, and the temperature 

 is 40' above zero the most of the time. 

 They seem to be doing very well now. 



I^ J. C. Thorn, M. D., (140-249) 

 Streetsville, Ont., writes : 



In a communicalion to the " Beeton 

 World " of Dec. IS, 1884, I notice that I, 

 as President of the Ontario Bee-Keepers' 

 Association, am called upon by Mr. Allen 

 Priugle to express my views as to the de- 

 sirability of a change of the organ of that 

 association from the "Canadian Farmer," 

 to that of some periodical devoting itself 

 entirely to bee-culture and its allied in- 

 terests. At the outset I wish it to be un- 

 derstood that I present my views not as an 

 oflicial of the Ontario Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation, but simply as a member and bee- 

 keeper making a specialty of honey-pro- 

 ducing. Mr. Pringle asks if the times are 

 not now ripe for establisliing a Canadian 

 bee- paper, at the same time proposing Mr. 

 1). A. Jones as its editor. 1 can only say 

 that if Mr. Jones would undertake the 

 task, no better man could he found to 

 make it a success, and I have no doubt 

 that the Association will at once adopt 

 tbe new paper as its organ of communica- 

 tion with its members. The interests of 

 honey-producers in Canada (and perhaps 

 also in the United States) liave ahcmt 

 reached a point where it would be unwise 

 and suicidal for those who expect to cou- 

 tiiiiie in the business to encourage their 

 acquaintances, and the re>t of mankind, 

 to enter the field (now raiiidly being over- 

 stocked) of honey-])roilnctiou. Do we not 

 on all sides, in other occupations, hear The 



cry of over-production and ruinous com- 

 petiti(ni ? Are supply dealers not afraid, 

 by the way in which they are encourag- 

 ing all and sundry to go into the business, 

 of so Injurying specialists, who ought to 

 be their be.st customers, that in the end it 

 will re-act on their own business? lam 

 not one of those who believe we can in- 

 duce the general public to consume un- 

 limited quantities of honey at paying 

 figures to tlie producer, especially with 

 sugar at the present prospective prices. 

 In conclusion then I would say, instead 

 of having the proceedings of our societies 

 published in newspapers devoted to other 

 objects than bee-culture, let us encourage 

 the papers devoted to our special pursuit, 

 and it will assist in putting the evil day of 

 over-production a little farther away ; and 

 if a little of the selfishness eomuien to 

 other classes of our fellow mortals were 

 manifested by apiarists, then our pursuit 

 would be placed upon the basis which was 

 lately so ably advocated by Mr. Heddon 

 and others in the columns of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Joltknal. The trouble of the 

 future, and in fact of the present, I an- 

 ticipate will not be the problem of produc- 

 ing, wintering, and the general care of an 

 apiary, but the marketing and disposal of 

 products produced witli much toil and ex- 

 pense, at such living prices as a man's 

 skill and labor should entitle him to. 



i^° Green R. Shirer (6— 9),Greene,6 

 Iowa, on Jan. 7, 1885, writes : 



The past season was very fair in this 

 section. While clover and basswood 

 furnished honey profusely, and if full 

 colonies had been managed properly, a 

 good crop would have been obtained, but, 

 as it was, most bee-keepers allowed their 

 bees to swarm at will, and so they got 

 very little surplus honey. There is no 

 one within many miles of here who is 

 posted in bee-keeping, and makes a suc- 

 cess of it. Here, bees are allowed to 

 swarm as often as they please, build their 

 combs crosswise in the frames, the moth 

 get among weak colonies, the bees get 

 sick, and their owners do not know what 

 is the matter with them. I sold out in 

 Ohio, last April, and came here, and I 

 soon discovered this to be a good location 

 for honey production. I made some hives, 

 obtained six .3-frame nuclei on June 4, 

 1884, antl on July 4, they averaged ten 

 frames each. On July 20 the strongest 

 colony cast a very large swarm, and in 

 about two weeks cast an after-swarm. I 

 took 125 pounds of surplus comb honey, 

 besides brood-combs enough to winter a 

 colony that 1 got fi'om a neighbor. My 

 hives are packed inside with chaff, and 

 covered with a snow drift. In tlie spring 

 I will report on wintering. 



1^ C. Russell, Conesville, Ot N. 

 Y., writes : 



On page .330 of the Bee Joitknal for 

 18S4, Mr. John Longmate gives a descrip- 

 tion of bis division-hoard, and wishes any 

 person who thinks he has a better one, to 

 give a description of it in the Bee Jouk- 

 NAi.. I do not know that 1 have a better 

 one than Mr. L.'s, for I have never used 

 the one which he describes as having a 

 joint in the middle, but after trying half a 

 dozen different styles, I made some after 

 the following plan, which are easily made, 

 and work better than any I have ever 

 tried : They are made of pine boards one 

 inch thick aiid 1% inches shorter than the 

 hive, inside measure ; then, to prevent 

 warping, take two pieces .5-8 by % inches, 

 and as long as the division-board is wide, 

 fasten one of these to each end of the 

 board with 5 or G finishing-nails, leaving 

 cleats back Js of an inch from the face of 

 the board, or even with its back. The 

 division-board is now % of an inch shorter 

 than the hive, or 3-l() of an inch at each 



